Tuesday, July 12, 2005

- Last week, the American movie-box office finally surpassed the same weekend box-office from 2004. For 18 straight weeks the box-office had declined from the same time period in 2004. People simply arent seeing as many movies as they did last year, and certainly arent seeing as many movies as they did in previous decades. I think there are three reasons for this:

1. Movies stink. I dont think anyone will claim that movies are as well-written as they were twenty or thirty years ago. Political correctness has something to do with this. Studios are unwilling to try bold scripts, for fear of offending someone. More importantly, in Hollywood's mind, it's easier to spend great sums of cash to market a movie and get a huge opening weekend for that movie. Why bother hiring talented writers, and spend years developing a film when you can instead cash in quickly with a huge opening weekend?

2. Nowadays, there are more convenient ways to watch movies. Driving to a movie theater, standing in line, sitting in a room full of complete strangers, spending insane money on food and beverages, and then driving back home is rather inconvenient to millions of Americans. It's easier to run down to your local video store and rent a movie or order a movie via pay-per-view.

3. High gasoline prices. It effects nearly every aspect of our economy. The butter you put on your popcorn had to be shipped in on trucks. The movie reels must be shipped in. The giant posters the theater puts in its windows were delivered by vehicles that run on gasoline. Etc, etc.

- Since the end of the 19th century, technological advances have been increasing on an exponential curve...or have they? According to this article, we are about to enter another technological dark-age. I happen to be a proponent of the idea that technology is rocketing forward, but this article did make me pause and re-think my assumptions:http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7616&feedId=online-news_rss20